Ancient Errors: Criminally Undersized Flan

This is absolutely ridiculous. The correct flan for this should have been about 2x as large as this miserable little thing.
I don't think any merchant would have accepted it at "face value"

 

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Maybe it was created during turbulent times, when bronze supply very limited.

 

Do you think it could have been "clipped" like silver coins used to be? Just curious.

 

That's interesting. It is possible, but the relatively uniform roundness seems to indicate otherwise.
However, carefully clipping around the entire coin would produce a relatively round result too so..

 

I don't know why/if it would have been worth it back then. It was just a thought.

 

I agree with the clipping. It could have been corroded away too. Some of those older bronzes have thinner flans around the edges.

 

I'm sorry; I don't get it. What is it?

 

It's an odd sized ancient coin. It is underweight and undersized so OP thinks it could be an error of some sorts. That's at least what I got out of it.

 

I guess error is the wrong word, the idea was that the coin was not right and should not have left the oficina

 

My question was really intended to ask you to identify the coin. I see no visible design. Also, what's the diameter? I can't tell the size from a photo alone!

 

As far as I can tell, it is an Emperor Dragging Captive reverse, potentially GLORIA ROMANORVM.

I can't tell the emperor either. It is about 12mm, putting it on the very low end of the AE4 scale.

Most undersized flans I've seen have been unusually thick, to compensate. This one is of an average thickness, which means it most likely has less metal weight than average.

 

It might be a barbarous imitation, naturally. Or a Magnentius coin, these appear maltreated sometimes.

 

I have one similar and even smaller! Looking at the reverse I believe it is an emperor dragging captive, not sure what emperor it might be. Coin is 9mm, 1mm thick and 0.66g. I wonder if it was later filed down to be used as a weight?

Sorry for the crappy photos, the coin is better in-hand!

 

I have quite a lot of seriously undersized coins and while this is not the most grievously undersized coin I have, it's the only one I bothered to put online because I love the portrait and otherwise it's in relatively good condition.

 

There is no reason why a merchant should not accept an undersized bronze coin at face value as long as he expected everybody else to accept it in payment. Bronze coins did not circulate as money because of their instrinsic metal value, like silver and gold. Merchants (and everybody else) would have rejected undersized silver and gold, but not necessarily bronze, which is in fact why we have "tons" of undersized bronze coins from the 3rd century. Saying that a ancient merchant would not have accepted an undersized bronze coin at face value, is like saying that a modern merchant would not accept a dirty or torn dollar bill at face value.

 

…. It may be interesting to note that the numismatic term “coin” actually covers different economic concepts of money. Money is the medium of exchange. In ancient times, gold and silver was money, or we may call it money proper. Payments in money proper could be made in coin or bullion. Any payment in gold and silver was final. It extinguished the debt and entailed no redemption risk.

Coins made of copper and bronze alloys were not money proper, but money substitutes. Such money substitutes (token money or fiat money) circulated in place of gold and silver where the latter was too valuable for the transaction. Acceptance of such money substitutes depended on the expectation that it is redeemable in gold and silver (i.e. the money proper) at face value and hence entailed redemption risk.

In the Roman Empire, silver coins were frequently subject to debasement. I.e. they shifted from being money proper to money substitutes. When too much money substitutes circulated, people doubted that they were redeemable in money proper. Redemption risk materialized. Holders of money substitutes tried to redeem their money substitutes in gold, silver and other real goods at sharply rising prices. The result was hyperinflation and currency reform.

 

The base unit of value in early Rome was actually bronze.

 

And, even earlier: cows.

 

That may be true and in the the earliest time they did exchange large slugs of bronze for its intrinsic value (aes grave). However, in practically all of the republican and imperial period, silver, and especially gold was the money proper, i.e. the final settlement currency. In fact, the state insisted on taxes being paid in gold (for at least some time of the imperial period).

 

I second Pellinore. After radiates and Constantine, c. mid-4th century issues are the next most common prototypes for barbarous issues. Detectorists have them on ebay.UK all the time. And the British ones, in particular, are frequently Tiny, including the radiates. It's fun to get both of any given issue, for contrast.